How to Get Out of Survival Mode
A first-person YouTube monologue by Elay Amitay Halevi explaining 'survival mode'—a state of chronic stress and logic-based thinking that suppresses intuition and creativity—and offering three practical steps to exit it: 1) register safety in the present moment (through meditation, somatic work, therapy), 2) physically slow down to access subconscious intuition (grounding activities, slow walks, baths, music), and 3) let go of what you cannot control and focus on what you can control (energy and self-work). The speaker uses personal anecdotes (26 years in survival mode, examples of business ideas and relationships) to illustrate each step and points to additional resources (shadow work video, private community).
Chapters
I talk to so many people who are so overwhelmed, so burnt out, so hard on themselves. And I know most people are in this cycle, you want to do better, you start forcing certain actions, you start hustling more, you start clocking in more hours, you start doing more things and adding more things on your plate and sometimes it gets a little bit better, but most of the time you just revert to the old way that you were feeling and you come right back to square one. You might sabotage yourself, sabotage, sabotage your progress, but you always end up at that same level of consciousness and energy, drained, depleted, hopeless and feeling so limited and trapped in your current reality. If this sounds like you, then you are in survival mode and you cannot create your dream life from survival mode. I know this because I spent 26 years in survival mode. I was hustling, I was burning out, I was doing everything that everyone told me I should do in order to improve my life, make more money, be successful. And I just kept going around and around in these cycles, burning myself out, feeling like I was forcing and just feeling worse and worse and further away from true success and fulfillment. The reason for that is because you have probably been programmed to be in survival mode because most of the world is in survival mode. So I went from living in a house share in Dublin city centre with working a job that I hated, working late hours. I was training to become a solicitor and I was involved in all these things that I really had no interest in and I was so lost that I didn't even know what I wanted in life. And this is what survival mode does. You're spending so much of your energy on your stress, on your worry, on your overthinking that you can't even hear your intuition and what would actually be meaningful for you. So if this is you right now, I want to comfort you and let you know that it is normal when you're in survival mode to feel like you don't have a purpose. But that is not the truth. And in order for you to become clear on what that purpose is, you simply need to come out of survival mode and ground back into your energy and back into your truth. So this video is going to show you how to do that. I'm going to share with you three steps to come out of survival mode so that that you can actually start aligning with the life of your dreams. Before we get into the steps, I'm going to briefly explain why you can't create your dream life from survival mode. Survival mode is your conscious, logical aspect of you and it is only interested in, you guessed it, keeping you alive and keeping you surviving. It's not wired to help you thrive, to help you create, to help you imagine all these dream things and grand possibilities for your life. And when we look deeper at survival mode, it's masculine energy, it's burning out in your masculine energy which causes your feminine energy to switch off within you. You've got those two energies, whether you're a man or a woman. And in order to function optimally in this world and to create a really thriving life for yourself, you want to use both of those energies. Unfortunately, society has set up a kind of system where masculine energy is really put on a pedestal and feminine energy is not prioritized so much. So your masculine energy is your logic, your reasoning. It is your physical decisions and actions that you take in this material world. It is your conscious thinking mind that scans for threats and scans for dangers. Then your feminine energy is your intuition, your creativity, your imagination, your flow and your feelings. That feminine energy is the divine aspect of your being. It's your spiritual aspect. It is, it's connected to your subconscious mind, which is connected to the non physical, the 99%, that which you cannot see and perceive with your physical senses. So if you want to align with a new possibility, one that you've never experienced before, doesn't it make sense that that is not going to come from your masculine energy? Because everything that your conscious mind, that masculine energy side of you knows and is feeding information to you about is based on what you physically have experienced since you arrived here on this planet. But if you want to experience something completely new, you need that creativity, you need imagination and intuition and, and you need to be able to feel into a new possibility so that it can guide you to that. Your intuition will take you places that your logic will never. But when you're in survival mode, all your thinking is in terms of logic and limitation and it is impossible for you to see outside of that. And I remember when I was living fully in survival mode all the time, it's like no matter how many actions I took, no matter how much I was flying, forcing, I was never able to break above a certain point. But when I finally began healing out of survival mode and I came out of that state of consciousness, I was able to see all these other paths and all these other possibilities that my intuition and my imagination brought to me, not my logic. So this is why it's so important to realize you are not going to create your dream life when you're in your Logic. When you're forcing and holding, hustling and burning out in that masculine energy, you need to tap into that intuitive feminine energy. And it's going to make it easy for you to access your dream life when you do that. So the first step to coming out of survival mode is registering that you're safe. This is such a key step. And anytime I feel myself forcing or coming out of alignment and my intuition is switching off, I realize it's because I haven't been allowing myself to relax and, and feel safe in my body in the present moment. So I had a phase recently where I was getting really into cycles of just feeling really anxious, really overwhelmed. I was waking up with like, you know, that weight on your chest where you just feel like you open your eyes and you can just see your to do list and you're just overwhelmed. You're stressed, you're overthinking immediately. You need to know that that means you're burnt out in survival mode in your masculine energy. And the antidote to that is to sit down. So I kept trying to force visualizing and scripting and journaling, and it just wasn't working. My visions couldn't come to life because I was burned out in survival mode, which means my feminine energy was switched off. And in order for your feminine energy to switch on, you need to feel safe. So I kind of realized what was happening and I sat myself down and I just said, okay, I need to sit here in meditation and I need to just let go of any thought thought that's making me feel unsafe. So I did. I think it was a root chakra meditation. And I essentially just imagined laying down all my weapons and taking off my armor and just completely laying down and letting go of all these battles that I felt like I was fighting. And when I came out of that meditation, I had two business ideas, five friends I could call. Like, all these things became clear to me. My intuition had switched back on. Why? Because. Because I had registered internally that I was completely safe in the present moment. And the key thing that I remember from that is I opened my eyes after doing that, and my body was finally relaxed and I realized how unsafe I had actually felt for the past three or four weeks without even realizing it. So even at this point, I had done so much inner work, I had fallen back into a habit of, like, focusing on all these battles and all these work worries and carrying these things unconsciously without even knowing that that was happening. So you probably don't realize right now how many subconscious battles you're fighting and how much that's robbing you of your inner calm and clarity and vision. Because when you're in survival mode, your vision can't come to life. That feminine energy is off. I want you to almost think of it like it's like a woman, like that part of you is like a woman and she needs to feel safe, safe and protected and nurtured in order to pipe up and start helping you and guiding you and giving you intuition and visions and flow. And so sometimes you need to slow down, to speed up. Because when I surrendered, when I let go, when I allowed myself to realize I'm fully safe right now in the present moment. Whatever happened before, it's not happening right now. Whatever's going to happen after, it's not happening right now. Right now I'm safe. That was just what that feminine energy side of me needed to turn back on. And that took me right out of survival mode where I was able to come out of my head, out of my overthinking and back into my body. And then those energies balanced and I was feeling more able to just tackle my life with clarity. So that's step number one to coming out of survival mode. Register that you're safe right now in the present moment. And if you can't drop into a feeling of safety in the present moment, then you need to realize that you're carrying more than likely stories from the past that are making you feel unsafe. So going to those stories, doing shadow work, doing belief rewiring, going to therapy, talking to someone one on one who can help you, even like somatic healing and things like that, to release the those internal things that you're holding on to that make you feel unsafe right now. That's going to bring you out of survival mode almost immediately, as well as these other two things that I'm about to share with you. But this is 100% the starting point. You need to start feeling more safe right now in the present moment. Okay, step number two, survival mode Loves when you're rushing, it feeds off that. So you need to physically slow down if you want to come out of survival mode. And if you've been in survival mode for your whole life like I was, you're going to feel a lot of resistance towards that. But that means it's exactly what you need to do. So I remember the first time that I did this, it almost triggered a spiritual awakening in me. So I was coming back from the gym and I was again living a really fast paced life at this time. I was Doing my degree. I was working a job, I was doing powerlifting and I was getting the bus home from the gym. It was like 10 o' clock at night. I had a super long day. I had tons of pre workout in me. I was absolutely wired. And I was listening to at the time. I would listen to like techno. I'd be blaring like techno all the time. Talk about fight or flight mode. And I remember I was getting such sensory overload on the bus and I was thinking, oh my God, I was so overwhelmed. I was so in my head, my thoughts were spinning. And a thought just came into my head that said, turn off the music and just be present during this walk. So the walk from the bus up to my house, I hated it. It was up a hill, it was on the side of a road. And on this day it was dark and it was raining. Okay? Irish rain is no joke. So I got off the bus and normally what would be a, like a terrible walk that I hated, especially in the rain, I would just put a podcast in and put my techno in and like, you know, just go up the hill at full speed, trying to get it over with. Something in me told me to just slow down and to be present with every step. So what I did is I put piano music on in my ears, right in my earphones, and I walked slowly up the hill to my house. And it was the most magical spiritual experience. All of a sudden I was noticing like the rain falling on the leaves and dropping on the floor, and it just felt like I was in a movie. It was genuinely magical. And I felt so much energy come rushing back into my body. I felt like joy, peace, gratitude, all of a sudden come rushing in. When literally two minutes before this, I was completely overwhelmed and like so stressed. And I was trying to figure something specific out. I remember I was kept thinking about something, kept thinking about something that I was so worried about after this walk. I was so peaceful and in my body after slowing down physically, that all of a sudden the solution just popped up, just like that. So that's what happens when you slow down. You can think about, even right now, a time when you were just desperately trying to, like, force and figure something out. And as soon as you let it go and focus on something else, you got the solution. This is the same thing. So specifically when you slow down, whether it be just doing activities that bring you back into the moment and slow you down. So like taking a long bath, going for a slow walk, listening to relaxing music, or meditating, it's really powerful when you do that. Because when your brain waves slow down, you come out of your conscious thinking mind, that masculine energy where survival mode lives and thrives. And you go into your subconscious conscious mind, you're able to detach and let go. And in there there are infinite possibilities. That is where your imagination is. That is where all these solutions are that don't exist in your conscious mind. Like you're not going to find them there. So give yourself permission to come out of the conscious mind by slowing down and coming into your body. The key thing with this is you're coming out of your three thoughts, you're coming out of your head and into your body. Because when you're physically slowing down that like being in your body, being present in your body connects you into your subconscious mind. The two are connected. Your subconscious mind controls your body. So when you ground into your body, you connect into your subconscious mind. And then all of a sudden you're going to have all the solutions that you were desperately looking for when you were forcing yourself to think about it over and over again in your conscious mind. So one of my favorite quotes is slow down to speed up. You will find so many answers when you just allow yourself to stop rushing and allow yourself to slow down because you'll be finally coming out of survival mode. Survival mode loves you rushing through life. So slow down. The third step, and honestly, probably the most important step to coming out of survival mode is letting go of what you can't control and focusing on what you can control. So being in survival mode means one thing over everything, which is overthinking. That is like the number one symptom of being in survival mode. You're in your head, you're hyper, analyzing your worst case scenarioing, your catastrophizing all the time to the point that you're living in an internal purgatory. And I remember this specific example I have is in my relationship. So I used to be so worried about finding the right person, whether I would find the right person. And I would be trying to like write down all these things that I wanted in a partner. And looking, looking, searching, searching, trying to logic my way through, through how I was going to make a relationship happen, how I was going to find my husband, find my dream man. And I remember I actually at one point wrote down like all these things that I wanted in someone. And I was actively like forcing, I was on dating apps trying to look for this person. And lo and behold, I never ever found them because finding them was really not in my Control and me like holding on so tightly and trying so desperately to like force this thing to happen, to force certain connections to be right for me, just led me to more and more pain and suffering. So I endured three relationships before I found my most aligned relationship that were really so unaligned because I was trying to control the dynamic, I was trying to control the other person. I was trying to make it happen how I wanted it to happen, when really it was not within my control to do that. So the more I just let go of trying to force reality to serve me up, this ideal person, and focus instead on what I could control, which was me, my energy, and becoming the version of me that I wanted to be in my dream relationship, the more that dream relationship just literally fell into my lap. So when I fully let go of looking for another partner and trying to like force all these connections in my life, I had fully let that go. And I fully put my focus on what I could control, which was me and my energy and being in the energy that I wanted to be in that relationship. The relationship landed out of thin air, I'm not joking, out of thin air. And it was everything I could have ever dreamed of, and more so by me forcing in my logic and forcing in this like limited mindset. I couldn't even see, see the possibility of it being better than what my limited, narrow mindset was giving me. And that's what survival mode will do. When you're trying to force and control, you're actually trying to force an option that's not actually as good as the option would be if you were to let go as the option the Divine would bring in whatever your beliefs support. Like my intuition brought me an option that was greater than my logic ever, ever could have brought me. But I had to let go of what I couldn't control and focus on what I could control in order for that to happen. And this has happened to me over and over and over again in every single area of my life. And the reason that this works is because when you let go of what you can't control, you come out of that overthinking, that survival mode. You drop back into your feminine energy, your intuition, and then you're able to intuitively align with the possibility that's actually best for you. Because that logic, ego, survival driven part of you has come out of the way. So that part of you is blocking the best path for you. And it starts at that need to control. So a couple of tips to help you let go of control. Because if you are very controlling, you might find that very difficult. I know I definitely did. The first thing you need to realize is that this controlling behavior that you have, it's giving you something. It's giving you probably a false sense of safety. And it's more than likely coming from a past situation where you felt like you lost control or didn't have control and that situation caused you pain. So realize that controlling everything is in the present, in your life is not going to relieve the pain of having lost control in the past. Making peace with what happened in the past is going to relieve that pain. But forcing and controlling right now is only actually bringing you more pain. It's not healing anything. And allow yourself to just play with the idea of letting go of control. Like, take stock right now of everything that you've been worrying about, Everything that you've been trying to analyze and predict and force and figure out. Realize if you were to let that go right now, nothing would actually happen. This is something that I do with myself all the time. If I feel myself like holding onto something and really trying to figure it out and control it, and I realize it's not mine to control, I'll go, well, what would actually happen if I were to just drop that and let it go? Nothing, actually. What would happen is you would figure it out intuitively later on in a way that was much better than your logic survival mode brain was going to figure out. And then the other side to this is focusing on what you can control. Okay, so that's my second tip. You can't let go of something if you don't have something else to hold on to. So what you can hold on to instead of what you can control is what you can control. Write down three things you've been avoiding. And instead of focusing on things that are not your business to control, focus on doing those things that are your business to control. That's actually immediately going to heal your masculine energy. It's going to remind you of your power, and it's going to bring you out of survival mode so fast because you're going to be feeling more grounded and more present in your body, and you're going to come out of your head hyper fixating on all these things that are just causing you more stress and more burnout. You have a divine intuitive nature within you. But this survival mode that you've been running in is not going to allow you to live your life in accordance with that and to tap into that power. You can see people who are just in flow, in abundance, in alignment. And you're wondering, well, why can they do it and I can't do it? It's because they have come out of survival mode and into creator mode. Into their feminine energy. They've allowed themselves to tap into their intuition and imagination. But in order to do that, you need to let go of this old program that you've been running for so long. This program of not feeling safe, of looking for danger, of forcing, of not letting go of control. All of these things rushing through life. It's just going to keep you burnt out and keep you feeling, forcing and hustling towards a life that you probably don't even want. And that's not going to be fulfilling. Whereas if you were to do the steps today in this video and to release yourself out of survival mode, you would realize that you have a well of imagination, of creativity, of intuition literally at your disposal waiting to guide you to your dream life. Okay, so just to summarize the things you need to do, realize you're safe in the present moment. Register that you are perfectly safe right now. Put down your weapons and put down the burdens of the past. Stop rushing physically slow down. You have to slow down sometimes in order to speed up. And then the last one is let go of controlling what you can't control and focus fully on what you you can control. If you need more support on the shadow work side of this, so healing the things from the past that you're carrying with you that are still causing you to feel unsafe, I have a whole video on shadow work on YouTube. I'll link it down below. As well as that, I have a private community where I've hosted a three day event on this topic, specifically with guided exercises, journal prompts, meditations and everything like that to help you heal out of survival mode and to come into creator mode. I. I will leave the link for that down below as well. Thank you so much for watching. I hope this video helped and I will see you in the next one.
